When All Seems Lost
by Celtic Knot
Summary: "He felt drawn to her, not as a man to a woman, but rather as a repentant sinner to one who might serve as confessor." Sequel to "In What Time Remains." Cross-posted on AO3.


_The saying Samara attributes here to Athame is taken from the Charge of the Goddess used in some Wiccan and Pagan practices. My headcanon of Thane's motivations always puts me in mind of that particular passage._

* * *

 **When All Seems Lost**

 _A brief flare of anger, reflexive and intense. Garrus sees it, continues anyway. "I may not have your breadth of experience, but I spent enough time in C-Sec to know when someone's lying to me." His face and tone soften. "And when he's lying to himself."_

 _Truth dragged up and shoved in my face. The illusion shattered by acknowledgement. The anger fades—Garrus is right. Suddenly the lights are too bright, the air too thin. My knees threaten to give way. I can't… I'm not…_

Thane dragged himself back to the present moment with a gasp and a shudder, and no small amount of frustration. That particular conversation had haunted his memory for days now, interfering with his meditations and keeping him awake at night. It made his heart pound and his head spin, filling his veins with ice and his soul with tribulation.

He had said, had _insisted,_ that he was at peace with his body's impending death. For ten years he'd known it was coming, and had spent those years trying to atone for his sins. To remove some of the dark things from the galaxy, to leave it a better and brighter place. He had spent his solitary moments in meditation and prayer, readying himself for the inevitable.

How hollow those prayers now rang in his memory. How arrogant and meaningless. How the Gods must have laughed.

In truth, he was not ready to cross the sea. Content though he had been to remain sunk deep in battle-sleep, he was reawakening despite himself. Now, with less than a year remaining to him, he was finding a purpose again, a reason to go on. He had a mission, and a team that counted on him. He had spoken to his son and begun to mend their relationship. He had even found another _siha_ to warm his battered and weary soul—or perhaps she had found him. Now, as his life drew inexorably to its close, he had begun to live again for the first time in years.

The irony of this was not lost on him.

No, he was not by any means at peace. And it had taken the brash observation of a young turian he barely knew to make him realize it.

Agitated, he stood and paced the length of the room. He needed counsel. But he had been alone for so long, had had contact with few people besides his employers—or his targets—for years. He'd had no one but himself to rely on since—

 _(the hanar sing like bells)_

He pushed the memory aside.

Now, though, Thane was part of a crew, a team. He had seen how these people had come to care for one another; had come to care for them himself. Was it really too much to hope that some of them might care for him as well?

He left the life support bay, and found himself outside the starboard observation deck before he'd made the conscious decision to go there. After a moment's hesitation, he keyed the door controls and entered.

Samara sat on the floor facing the ocean of stars, exuding the kind of serenity he often feigned but seldom truly felt, wreathed in the pale blue flames of her immensely powerful biotics. His own skin tingled in response, even from across the room.

He felt drawn to her, not as a man to a woman, but rather as a repentant sinner to one who might serve as confessor.

Loath to interrupt her meditations, Thane waited a few paces inside the door for her to acknowledge him, hands clasped behind his back. He was unaccountably nervous, his mouth dry as he fought to keep still. But finally, the biotic field faded and Samara rose gracefully to her feet, turning to greet him with a welcoming smile. "Sere Krios. This is an unexpected pleasure."

The formality of her speech and her use of the customary drell honorific helped set him somewhat at ease. He bowed politely. "Justicar, your reputation for wisdom precedes you. I had hoped I might prevail upon you to… share some of it with me."

"It is only what wisdom comes of age," Samara replied, "but if anything I have learned in my nine hundred years can help you, I will gladly share. Come, sit with me." She settled cross-legged on the floor again, and Thane sat facing her.

"I confess, I had considered seeking out the Consort on the Citadel," he admitted as he mirrored her posture. "However, time, for me, is… rather too short."

Samara inclined her head sympathetically. "I had heard about your illness. The crew worries about you."

"They needn't," Thane snapped, annoyed. "My performance is not yet hampered by my condition. I will _not_ be a liability to our mission."

"You misunderstand. No one aboard _Normandy_ questions your performance. Their concern is for _you."_

The kindness in her eyes and in her voice was more than he could bear. Thane looked away, fixing his gaze on the floor between them, suddenly at a loss for words. _Not too much to hope for, after all._ And yet the realization of that hope was overwhelming.

"If I may ask," Samara said gently, "how much time do you have?"

Thane closed his eyes briefly. "At Doctor Chakwas's last estimate… eight months. Perhaps less." A chill passed over him as he said the words, and he suppressed a shudder.

"This troubles you, of course."

"Far more than it should." He took a deep, steadying breath before continuing, studiously ignoring the sharp pain that pulled at his lungs. "I have had more than ten years to come to terms with my mortality. A decade to prepare. I should consider myself fortunate—few are blessed with such ample notice." Swallowing hard, he blinked back tears of shame. "Yet it would seem I have… squandered that time."

"How so?"

Thane leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, folding his hands in front of his face as he considered his next words. He struggled to stay in the present moment, fighting back the harrowing memories that threatened to overwhelm him. "Everything fell apart so quickly," he murmured, hating the note of desperation that crept into his voice. "Only days after I informed my family of my diagnosis, I accepted a contract that took me far from home, and kept me away a long time. When I finally returned, it was to find my home drenched in blood. My wife had been murdered in my absence."

It felt so strange to be talking about this again. For so long he had carried this burden alone, and now found himself confiding in the second person in as many months. "I… slipped into darkness after that," he continued. "I left our son in the care of his aunts and uncles while I pursued her killers. And I never returned."

Without a trace of judgement, Samara asked, "Why not?"

Thane hesitated. "I wanted Kolyat to have a better life than I could provide." This was agony even now. "My skill set is very… specific. I didn't know how to be a father."

The justicar's pale blue eyes transfixed him, and the truth, the truth he hadn't even admitted to Shepard, was dragged out of him like a barbed blade. "And every time I looked at him, I saw _her_ ," he confessed. "My Irikah. I couldn't… I fled. I ran as though I could outpace the memories that have dogged my every step since." Thane bowed his head, letting his clasped hands fall to the deck as a long, shuddering sigh escaped him. "For this, more than any of my other sins, I have sought for a decade to atone. Eventually, I convinced myself that I had. And I let that lull me into a false sense of peace."

"And now?" Samara pressed when he didn't continue.

He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound even to his own ears. "Now my self-deception is revealed for what it is, and I find myself back where I began. Only now… now I have much more to lose." Meeting her eyes again, he said harshly, "Make no mistake, Justicar—I am dying. Kepral's Syndrome cannot be cured, nor even treated with much effectiveness. Kalahira calls to me, and I must soon answer." He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to calm down. "But where once I would have gone gladly to Her embrace… the thought now fills me with dread."

"It is only natural to fear death. There is no shame in that." Samara spoke softly, gently, as if to a child. "And to be forced to watch its inexorable approach for ten years—few would consider that a blessing."

Thane could only shrug helplessly.

Samara studied him for a long moment. Finally, she asked, "What is it you seek?"

He blinked at her in confusion. "I… I don't understand."

"You spoke of your Goddess a moment ago. Allow me a moment to speak of mine." She reached out and took his hands, her own callused and very warm. "There is a saying in asari philosophy that is attributed to Athame Herself: 'If what you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.' This is known simply as the Mystery.

"You have made mistakes, Thane, as have we all. But you will not find the peace you seek until you first forgive yourself."

Thane absorbed this in silence. It made a difficult kind of sense.

The idea was so simple in theory, but perhaps impossible in execution. How could he ever forgive himself for abandoning his family? For the horrors that had been visited upon them as a result? For the torture and murder he'd committed in their names?

For all the lives he'd taken in his misguided quest for redemption?

The breath left him in a rush and he shot to his feet. _To leave the galaxy a brighter place._ How foolishly naïve that seemed suddenly, how simplistic and childish. And what a lie it was: neither noble goal nor guiding purpose, it was only a justification for his continued embrace of the oblivion of the battle-sleep, an excuse to remain on the wrong path. To absolve himself of this would be to shirk his just penance, to forgive the unforgivable.

 _Would it not?_

Belatedly, he realized Samara had risen as well. "Justicar, I… thank you," he managed. "You have given me much to think about." He bowed distractedly and left, his mind spinning and his soul hurting as it strained toward a faint spark of hope.

* * *

His meditations more disturbed than ever, Thane once again found himself restlessly pacing the length of the life support bay. Sleep was as elusive, despite the lateness of the hour.

Samara's words both puzzled and troubled him. Even if he could be sure he believed it, he wasn't convinced he was capable. He couldn't trust his own mind anymore. Would he even know if he was deceiving himself again?

He shut down that train of thought as firmly as he could. Thinking that way, he could drive himself mad.

Perhaps writing down some of his thoughts would help. It would force him to give words to the myriad warring emotions thundering in his mind and heart, to organize them into something coherent. Accessing his computer terminal, Thane opened a new document and saved it to his personal drive. A letter, to be delivered after his death.

 _Siha,_ he began.

 _I write this with a heavy hand, knowing you will read this letter when I am no longer able to share my thoughts…_


End file.
